When electronic records are subject to compliance requirements of Privacy laws the electronic records need to be secured and protected to maintain respective characteristics of confidentiality and data integrity. The term “privacy” (with lower-case p) refers to confidentiality of personal information; whereas Privacy (with capital P) refers to statutory requirements such as in formal regulations of a country. Additionally, protection may further be required to maintain inherent intellectual property rights associated with the electronic records.
Typically electronic records containing personal information are subject to statutory requirements for protection of Privacy. However, electronic records containing personal information cannot typically be transmitted outside the premises of an organizational entity while still maintaining compliance with the maintenance of Privacy requirements. Electronic records containing sensitive information or associative intellectual property need to be secured and protected when stored as well as when transmitted over a network to maintain confidentiality and data integrity, to prevent the electronic records from unauthorized access or alteration.
Electronic records may also be very large with respect to the volume of data comprising the records. Movement of the large volumes of data may cause degraded network and application performance due to network latency associated with transmission over a network.